Is the Good Politician Extinct?

by Gunther Simmermacher · Published May 22, 2024 · Updated May 6, 2024

As we prepare to vote in the national and provincial elections on May 29, we are called by our bishops to exercise our judgment wisely when we award our precious votes. For many, even the long ballot, with its endless list of political parties, will offer few promising options.

So we might vote for what we know, maybe holding our nose as we do so or perhaps out of conviction; or we vote tactically to help influence a particular outcome; or we vote for a random small party, calculating that a vote for them is also a vote against the bigger parties.

The ideal politician

If only there was a perfect political party, or even just a perfect politician. Alas, the rarely-spotted bonus politicus is believed to be virtually extinct. Some even say the species always was a myth.

Bonus politicus, the ideal politician, would be a true and truthful servant of the people he or she was appointed to represent and serve. Hatred and bigotry towards those who are of a different colour, class, creed, nationality or sexual orientation would be abhorrent to such a politician.

Bonus politicus would be profoundly concerned with issues of social justice and with peace, among citizens and nations. The perfect politician would strongly resist elective military action, placing dialogue and negotiation before acts of belligerence, and oppose unwarranted spending on armaments.

She would exercise a preferential option for the poor, believing that serving the common good begins with the alleviation and eventual eradication of poverty, which will benefit all the people of the land. He would stand up to corruption, nepotism and political deal-making.

She would take the good fight to those who exploit and defraud the people by wicked acts such as price-fixing and other forms of collusion. He would defend the right of workers to strike for a fair salary, but also safeguard the people from the effects of undue excesses in industrial actions.

From a Catholic perspective, bonus politicus would be, by inclination and in practice, solidly pro-life and pro-family. She would oppose abortion, euthanasia and capital punishment alike.

He would regard policies and practices that mutilate the environment as an affront to God’s creation, and take action accordingly.

Bonus politicus would be an incorruptible servant of an ethical vocation, independent of secular ideology or party line. He or she would know that all governments are under God’s judgment and are answerable to God’s laws.

No place for the good

Such a politician is scarcely seen. Certainly, within systems of direct representation — such as those in the United States and Britain — such a candidate would find it difficult to be elected, or perhaps even to raise the requisite funds to fight an election campaign.

And because such a politician would not tolerate corruption, venality, incompetence, mismanagement and other characteristics of the modern politician, but instead act with an independent sense of virtue, he or she would probably not be in the mainstream of popular parties — even as the members of these parties and the public cry out for ethical leaders.

A political party that embraces the policies and attributes of bonus politicus would probably not even get elected — if there was a chance of ethically pure parties finding the favour of the electorate, then they would exist.

Nevertheless, the attributes of bonus politicus are the measures by which we ought to determine the party in which we place our electoral trust. In that, we will have our own priorities, and some parties will conform to these ideals and our own priorities better than others.

Over the 15 weeks leading up to election day 2024, we will have been bombarded with pleas for our support, endless mudslinging and, of course, big promises. Some parties will pretend that the past doesn’t matter, others will assure us that the bigotries they spew forth present no obstacle to their fitness to govern.

Coalition hazards

This may apply to the bigger parties as well as to smaller outfits. South Africa seems to be on the way to rule by coalitions, quite possibly even in national government. We must be very sure of the good character of the smaller parties before we potentially invest in them the disproportionate power which micro-parties often wield in coalitions. Just ask the people of Johannesburg!

Our bishops have long followed a wise approach of staying out of party politics. While they may comment on pertinent issues to offer moral guidance, to politicians and the faithful alike, they abstain from endorsing one party over another — even if their statements on matters of public ethics can be misunderstood to suggest the contrary. But then, if the truth hits the mark, it still is the truth.

It is the task of the faithful to determine which party and which of these parties’ respective leaders, in their view, comes closest in meeting the criteria for the ideal politician.

So we have an obligation to present ourselves at the polls, if we are able to, and to make our crosses. Those who surrender their right to vote also forfeit the moral licence to state their disillusionment with the country’s political leadership.

And if we vote wisely, who knows, maybe one day we will see the rarely-spotted bonus politicus.